


Felt Like God's Anointed When You Didn't Push Me Away

by Birdbitch



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4898257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Caspian gets overwhelmed, he rides out to the hills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Felt Like God's Anointed When You Didn't Push Me Away

**Author's Note:**

> I'm fudging the ages a lot--if you want, you can look at it as movie-verse ages, even though I'm borrowing the physical description from the books. Also, it's been a long time since I've written any Peter/Caspian anything, so I apologize for any inconsistencies.

Somewhere after Miraz’s death, time gets lost. There are so many parties and so many attempts at sabotage--more assassination attempts than he thought there could be, particularly against the old kings and queens--that Caspian, at some point, stops thinking about the progress of time in a linear fashion and instead as some kind of fog that he doesn’t know how to navigate. After a long day of what he knows had to have been doing something but instead feels much more like nothing, he excuses himself from the men he’s taken on as advisors-- _Sorry, gentlemen. I feel a bit tired, yeah?_ \--and leaves the castle.

It’s a foolish gesture and his presence is going to be missed when dinner happens, but as far as he knows the Pevensies are still there, and if there’s at least one figurehead, then maybe his own absence won’t be as keenly felt by the public. A war rarely starts over one missed dinner. As a precaution, he tells his valet that he’s gone to bed early if anyone asks. The sun starts setting as he makes his way towards the countryside, and he smiles at its long arms as if an old friend is welcoming him back into the world. Indeed, he finds himself drawn to one of the hills by Aslan’s How, and there’s a tug in his chest for a time that never has actually existed for him--a pained want for an existence where he has never had to worry about the responsibility of becoming king, a want for an existence where maybe instead of royalty his family were woodcutters.

His father would have been disappointed in the thought, and he finds, as he rounds closer to his destination, that he doesn’t care. Sometimes it’s nice to get away from the city. There’s a figure made shadowy thanks to the sun’s light, and for a moment, Caspian stills, not sure if he should continue until a voice calls out his name and beckons him closer. “Caspian,” it says, and Caspian urges his horse forward. Peter.

The former king’s own horse is grazing, not far away, and Caspian takes a moment before greeting Peter to tether his horse alongside it. “I would have thought you’d still be in the castle,” he says, returning to Peter’s side, and Peter shrugs before folding his arms over his chest.

“I was a little tired,” he admits, and there’s something in the upwards curve of his mouth that expresses that it wasn’t just exhaustion that pushed him out for respite, but Caspian keeps his own mouth shut. “Your historians are very thorough in their questioning.”

Caspian laughs. It was strange for him when Peter and his siblings first arrived--he never thought he’d be taller than the high king, never thought his own shoulders would be broader or his hands wider. They’re both young men, though, and while it’s still something he occasionally forgets, he’s reminded of their solid states when put next to each other. “They’ve never spoken to history before,” he says. “If it bothers you, I can ask them to stop.”

Peter shakes his head. “Aslan says that it’s alright, to humor them. And I don’t mind it so much.” He swallows and looks skyward. “It’s just--talking about it sometimes gets frustrating. I miss being older.” Caspian tries to imagine aging to 30 years and then being pushed back to 18, and he frowns. There’s always going to be something in Peter that thirsts for the role of high king, not out of greed but out of a natural leadership ability. Men like Peter always deserve to be kings, Caspian thinks. Where else are they best suited? “What about you? Aren’t you supposed to be back there, too?”

“I told them I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Being cooped up isn’t healthy, I suppose. We ran campaigns and it kept us away for a while.” Peter folds his arms over his chest and closes his eyes. “Try running a hunting expedition. It usually helps get everyone to stretch their legs.”

Hunting--especially the idea of hunting with Edmund and Lucy and Susan and Peter--sounds like a welcome distraction for everyone. “I think I’d like to do that some time,” Caspian says. “Would you want to come with me?”

“Hm?” Peter opens his eyes and looks at Caspian, and the glow of the sunset illuminates his face so beautifully that Caspian almost wants to gasp. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe.” His voice sounds far away in a sad kind of way. “You’d like it, though.”

He doesn’t know what it is that makes it happen--one second, Peter and Caspian are sitting in silence together watching the sun sink lower beyond the horizon, and the next, Caspian looks over and notices that Peter is crying. It’s dignified, he thinks. They’re clean, salty trails, the kind that happen when people don’t even realize that they might be crying at all, and it isn’t as though Peter’s breathing or anything else has changed, not much. If Caspian hadn’t looked over, he might not have realized at all.

“Peter, are you alright?” he asks, and Peter, shaken out of a reverie, blinks a few times before looking down and wiping his fingers over his cheek. Immediately, Caspian wishes he hadn’t said anything, because Peter looks lost and so much younger than even the sixteen he is now.

“I’m alright,” he says, and he laughs a little, but it comes out brittle. “Oh, Jove. It’s not worth lying, I suppose. I’m very upset, and I think you being here might have made it a little worse.”

“Should I leave then?” Caspian asks, and he hopes that Peter says no. It’s then that Caspian notices little signs of anxiety that he had missed before--though should he be blamed? He hardly sees Peter anymore, apart from at dinner, and even then, there are men talking in their ears in either opposite direction. Peter’s bottom lip--red and pouty against the stark light of his skin, the darkness of his eyes and hair--is chapped from teeth worrying it. Maybe at some point it split right open, judging by the way when Peter bites it now, his tongue immediately darts out to try to soothe the wound.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Peter says. “It was a mean thing to say, that you made it worse. I don’t really think that.”

“Peter--”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that--” he looks up and at the sky and then the sun and he shrugs and sighs. “It’s very difficult,” he says plainly, and it’s not the great rhetoric that Caspian read about or that he has witnessed firsthand now, but when Peter looks at him after saying it, Caspian can’t help the thrill of despair that runs through him. He doesn’t know why it’s difficult, but he feels, somehow, a little bit of Peter’s sadness. Peter swallows and Caspian watches him, and he doesn’t know, exactly, again, what it is that makes it happen, but he leans forward and kisses Peter on his chapped mouth.

He expects to be shoved off. He expects a firm reprimand, something, anything other than Peter leaning into it, and when it happens, he feels a weight lifted from his shoulders. It’s not that this hasn’t been long in the making--there was something, he felt, back during Bacchus’s celebration in the forest, and even before then, but he hadn’t acted on it, and as far as he knew, he had been reading too far into any lingering physical contact Peter made with him. Caspian had always been told he had a tendency to read too much into people, and he had been trying very hard to overcome that. Instead, now, he has Peter’s hands on his forearms, his mouth pressing against his own, and he feels--he feels _right_.

When Peter pulls away, his cheeks are flushed, and Caspian knows that if he were as pale, he might be the same way. “Oh,” he finds himself saying, and Peter wipes at his face again before laughing and covering his eyes.

“Oh,” Peter says, repeating him, and when he leans back in for another kiss, he’s again surprised that Peter doesn’t stop him.

And time does its disappearing trick and when things feel right between the two of them, settled and easy, Caspian isn’t sure how long he’s been away from the castle. It’s late enough that they both should be returning, and they ride beside each other back into the city, back up through the palace gates. “Peter,” Caspian says, and Peter looks at him, dark circles under his dark eyes and hair tousled in a way that could be explained away by wind but is better explained by hands. He touches Peter’s hand and the former king doesn’t flinch. “Please?” he asks, and Peter nods his head. He’s not sure, even, exactly what he’s asking, just that there’s a warmth in his chest when Peter steps closer to him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's hard when you want to carry on with something but aren't exactly sure where to go with it, or even if it's just something you could only grab a piece of.


End file.
